Admiration
by Kalira69
Summary: The results of a lost bet have some people looking at Gai a little differently. Kakashi has never needed anything but to see Gai for who he is. (Written for KakaGai Week, Day 1)


Written for KakGai Week, Day 1: Fashion.

I found out about KakaGai Week rather late, and up until yesterday I was busy working on a Secret Santa story, so I wrote most of this today - and mostly in the past couple of hours. I'll try and come back to edit it (maybe in January), but hopefully it's not too rough as is - and hopefully the rest of my stories for this Event Week will be a little less rushed . . . although I haven't even started tomorrow's yet. Oops!

* * *

"This really suits you. Hell, look over there," Genma gestured with a waggle of his senbon, "maybe you should dress like this all the time!"

Gai frowned, looking down at himself. Then he looked over where Genma had indicated, but saw nothing but several of their fellow nin looking back. He nodded politely to them before continuing his scan of the room. "What?" he asked Genma.

". . .you're hopeless, my friend." Genma said with a wry smile, patting him on the shoulder. "At least think about taking advantage of some of it?"

"Taking advantage. . ?" Gai repeated, but Genma was eeling away already. "This is only temporary! And I am still not convinced you did not cheat!" he called.

Genma winked at him.

Gai would normally not accuse a friend of such a base and treacherous action, but . . . well, he had known too many of his friends for too long. He sighed, folding his arms across his chest and moving to the wall, propping his shoulders against it. Nevertheless, he had lost the bet, and Maito Gai was a man of his word, and his honour! He raised one fist in determination.

Gai fidgeted, lifting one foot and using the top of his sandal to tug down his pant leg where it had begun to wrinkle at the back of his calf. These clothes were so . . . uncomfortably different to his own, both stiff and too loose at once.

He realised after a few minutes that some of the nin he had exchanged glances with were still watching him, looking almost oddly intent, and frowned slightly as he scanned his immediate surroundings. Gai pushed casually off the wall and walked some way further down it, then brightened a bit as he saw Kakashi.

Kakashi actually appearing at a party like this was always a relatively dubious proposition, even if he were not on a mission.

Gai cast a nervous glance at the trio of nin still watching him - he felt strange and conspicuous, out of his own clothes - and edged closer to Kakashi. Even if _he_ was acting oddly - as everyone else Gai knew seemed to be in some way tonight, though Genma's behaviour no doubt stemmed from his happiness the results of their bet - after twenty years of friendship Gai was well familiar with his quirks.

As he approached, Kakashi sent Gai a curious sideways look, cocking his head.

"Rival!" Gai said cheerfully, and Kakashi tilted his drink in acknowledgement. Gai smiled, relaxing a little.

"This is unlike you." Kakashi observed idly, and Gai raised his hands, the loose sleeves bunching around his elbows and uncomfortably snug at his wrists.

"The result of a wager with Genma." Gai said with a sheepish shrug. "Only for tonight! Rest assured, the Sublime Green Beast will return to normal!"

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled faintly. "Ah, how reassuring to hear." he drawled, and Gai grinned at him happily. At Kakashi's side, with his Eternal Rival his usual Hip Self, Gai felt more _him_ self as well.

Gai looked back and frowned as he saw another couple of nin he knew decently well now watching him. He _knew_ he looked far from his usual self tonight, but this was rather unnerving, all the same.

Kakashi, he saw, had followed his gaze, and his friend's eyebrow arched as he took in the onlookers. "What," Gai paused, leaning a little closer to Kakashi, feeling a little unkind for the question, "is making them act so strangely?" he asked quietly.

Kakashi hummed, taking a slow look around the room, gaze lingering on several more people with their attention directed towards this corner. Gai hadn't noticed them before. He frowned, wishing, as he rarely did, that he could shrink into himself or seem less conspicuous. He looked down at himself again, with a small sigh.

"You're attractive." Kakashi said, and Gai choked, head jerking up. "They have only just realised it." Kakashi let out a soft sound that could be a laugh, though not even Gai could be sure, and tipped his head back.

"I- _What?_ " Gai asked faintly, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable. Kakashi _was_ more . . . adept in reading those sorts of matters, he was aware, but. . . Gai shifted his weight automatically into a stance better suited for quick evasion, reflecting his unease.

Kakashi snorted, patting Gai's arm and slipping by him. Gai looked after his friend, watching as he put his drink aside and tucked his hands in his pockets, sauntering around the crowd that filled the room.

Gai remained where he was, covertly eyeing one of the people still looking in his direction and trying to assess her from the perspective Kakashi had suggested.

Gai searched out Genma, finding him absorbed in conversation, his senbon dropped into the half-full glass he was gesturing with. Gai felt a twinge of guilt, but Genma certainly seemed unlikely to care - or perhaps notice - and it had _not_ been part of the terms of the wager he had lost to stay for the entire party. The bulk of the evening was behind them, in any case.

Gai slipped out, politely disengaging from conversation with a _very_ drunk nin who kept tugging at his sleeve - though not before Gai couldn't help but recognise the manner in which he was being approached - and trailing after Kakashi. He hesitated for only a moment before continuing to follow Kakashi up onto the rooftops and across the village towards his apartment.

He leapt down one street over and took the outside stairs up to Kakashi's top floor apartment, to make a more polite advance.

"Kakashi?" Gai said quietly, slipping through the door almost on his friend's heels.

Kakashi gestured lazily, and Gai relaxed, closing the door behind them. Kakashi glanced at him, then slipped into the kitchen. "Tea, Gai?" he asked, trailing his fingers along the counter's edge as he walked out of sight.

"Thank you." Gai followed Kakashi, lips pursing as he watched his friend move back and forth across the kitchen with lazy, almost sleepy movements, gathering the kettle and a pair of mugs - one with a brilliant, stylised sunset painted on it which was Gai's favourite. "Kakashi?" he repeated.

"Hn?" Kakashi prompted.

"Do you think I. . ." Gai tugged at a bit of his borrowed shirt and looked down at himself, seeing . . . nothing he recognised. "Is it better, to consider . . . staying looking like this?"

"What?" Kakashi turned abruptly, frowning as he crossed the kitchen towards Gai. "Don't be ridiculous." he said sharply.

"You said," Gai began, flushing, "that I am. . ."

Kakashi tilted his head, watching Gai with a narrowed eye. "Attractive?" he repeated, and Gai cleared his throat uncomfortably. "That those people today saw it in you now, like this?"

"Do you think so?" Gai asked, frowning at his loose shirt and the stiff pants.

Kakashi reached up, brushing Gai's hand away from his shirt, then further, tugging at his hair. Gai's nose twitched at the feeling, and Kakashi snorted, but only tugged again, both hands pulling lightly at his hair. It took Gai a minute to realise Kakashi was knocking the tousled, artful style Genma had fixed his hair into loose and combing it back to normal with his fingers.

Kakashi hummed, dropping his hands from Gai's hair as it fell mostly back into place and then smoothing his palms outwards over Gai's shoulders. "There you are." he said almost lightly, and Gai tilted his head curiously. "You've never changed yourself for anything, Gai, no matter what. Not from your own course. Would you really be happy doing so for _them_?"

"Not them, exactly." Gai said, shifting his stance, telling his body this _wasn't_ a fight and pointedly sliding out of a ready pose.

"Yes." Kakashi said, and Gai looked at his friend's face, not sure how he felt. Of course, several of his old friends had told him already at the party that he should try to look more like this regularly, and Kakashi poked fun at his green spandex all the time, but somehow he hadn't expected. . . "Yes, you're attractive, Gai, do you really not know?" Kakashi asked, and Gai startled. Kakashi snorted and shook his head, resting one hand at the centre of Gai's chest. " _Do I think so_ , well I'm not _entirely_ blind," he gestured wryly towards the sliver of his face that was visible, "so yes, I do."

"Oh." Gai cleared his throat, fidgeting.

"You look good in these clothes," Kakashi said, pinching the loose fabric of the shirt and tugging it lightly, "but it's not you. Aren't you always rattling on at your students to stay devoted to their truest selves?" he asked, arching his eyebrow as he turned away to answer the shrieking of the kettle.

"Yes!" Gai said, clenching one hand into a fist. "Forgive my wavering, Rival! It was unworthy of me and I-"

"Gai." Kakashi tipped his head and shot a look at Gai over his own shoulder.

Gai cleared his throat and grinned, nodding. Kakashi snorted and turned away again.

"I am simply not used to thinking that. . ." Gai shrugged, settling into the single chair Kakashi kept clear of clutter in his kitchen. The other two were piled with slightly crumpled mission scrolls and a few vests of appropriate sizes for various dogs. "I am accustomed to how people see me." he said, voice more sure.

Kakashi slanted a dubious look at him and Gai raised his eyebrows, surprised. "You what?" he asked, putting the sunset mug, with a teabag still floating in it, steeping, on the table at Gai's elbow.

"I am well aware of how . . . I am seen by people." Gai said with a small smile.

"Surely you are not serious." Kakashi said flatly, and Gai looked up at him, eyes widening. "You think they would-"

Gai tilted his head. "It's only the truth, Kakashi." he said, though rather touched by Kakashi's apparent irritation on his behalf.

"I find very little of worth in the opinions of 'people' as a whole." Kakashi said dryly, a shadowy sharpness in his eyes, and Gai remembered the dark mutters that had dogged Kakashi's steps in the village for years. Years which Kakashi had spent struggling to protect the very people who turned on him when he came close.

Gai was a very positive person, but he had been very angry on his Rival's behalf, then.

"One should always follow one's own path, no matter what others may throw in one's way." Gai said, offering a confidently reassuring smile.

Kakashi snickered, the tension seeping out of him bit by bit, and Gai's smile softened, becoming more comfortable and requiring less effort.

"That, it seems, is something _you_ have never had difficulties with." Kakashi said, perching on the edge of the table and tipping his head back. "I admire you for that." he said, and Gai's heart swelled with pride.

"To have earned the admiration of my most Precious Rival-!" Gai stood, clasping his fist to his chest.

Kakashi looked at him. "Maa," he waved a hand lazily, "no need to be so worked up about it."

"Truly, the admiration of one such Precious Person is worthy of giving-"

"Gai." Kakashi said, and Gai half-turned, falling silent and looking at him. "It is far from the only thing I admire about you, and I have for a long time." he said sincerely, and Gai's eyes welled with Manly Tears. ". . .and I needed no 'transformation'," he tugged at Gai's borrowed shirt with two fingers, "to see how attractive you are, either." he offered uncomfortably, not looking at Gai.

"Why- You-" Gai faltered, sliding back down into his chair. "You never intimated anything of the kind. . . Years of- and-" He was quite uncharacteristically lost and had no idea what to say.

"Maa, to be honest with you. . ." Kakashi shrugged. "I never thought you were particularly interested in that. At all. For all your romantic ideals, you never seemed to really care for the, ah . . . more immediate applications."

" _Kakashi._ " Gai said, blinking, confused and feeling oddly both hopeful and anxious.

Kakashi fiddled with his mask over the bridge of his nose. "Maa. . . No big deal." he said, flapping his hand as though to wave away the admission.

"Kakashi!" Gai bellowed, and Kakashi's eye narrowed as his hair fanned backwards in the face of the force Gai put into the cry. He modulated his tones - they _were_ indoors, in Kakashi's kitchen, after all. "My Precious Rival!"

"Gai, there's no-" Kakashi put his hands up, but it was hardly a proper defence, and did nothing to ward Gai off as he dragged Kakashi into his arms. Kakashi sighed as Gai squeezed him tightly, dragged off his feet, and then patted Gai's shoulder. "I really did not think it would matter to you. Or that you had not noticed, to be frank." he said, clearing his throat. "I was not always . . . the most subtle, with my admiration."

Gai had, quite honestly, never noticed anything of the kind. "How could it not matter to me?" he asked, releasing Kakashi so his friend was no longer crushed to his chest. He pressed a kiss to Kakashi's mask, an overflowing of emotion more than an overture, but Kakashi's eye widened in shock and Gai flushed, hurriedly releasing him and moving back.

Kakashi cleared his throat and smoothed his mask, though it was not so much as wrinkled. "Yes, well." He shifted, light on his feet. "Now you know."

"Know. . . I, yes. I know!" Gai repeated, then paused. "Is it- You mean, you harbour. . ."

Kakashi hummed absently.

"These feelings, they have not faded away?" Gai asked, heart thumping a little too energetically in his chest.

Kakashi looked up at him, startled. "Eto. . . That is, certainly I have-" He paused, lips pursing beneath his mask. "No." he said frankly, after a moment. "But that is," he flapped one hand, "hardly such a relevant point, is it?" He moved away, towards his mug of tea, waiting on the counter.

"Rival-! Can we not . . . talk?" Gai asked hopefully. "It. . . It could be a," he paused, mouth twisting, "relevant point. Perhaps."

"After you change, maybe." Kakashi said, glancing at him with a smirk Gai could read even through his mask. "I can _not_ take you seriously dressed like this, even with your hair fixed." he said, and Gai laughed.

Kakashi grinned at him, and Gai bowed his head. "Very well. When I am fully myself again, though?" he asked, pressing just a little.

Kakashi perched on the table near Gai's knee once more. "If you wish." he said, clearing his throat and then looking down into his mug. There was the faintest tinge of pink along the top of his mask, and Gai hid a smile. Few might believe it, but Gai knew his Rival was shy.


End file.
